Conventional athletic training methods and techniques include weight lifting, jump training, sprint training, agility training, and the like. Each training regimen often requires extensive training supervision by a coach or trainer. As such, much of the efficiency and individualistic training focus is lost or even avoided. Limited personnel, unskilled personnel, and cost and time restraints make effective off-season training ineffective. Training regimens are generally segregated and conducted without looking at the effects to, or an integration with, other training regimens. Further, without the proper implementation and timing for the individual training tasks, athletes are unable to properly focus the workouts in a manner that serves to maximize the individual's needs against the goals of the specific regimen (i.e., timing, strength, jumping, etc.) or the aggregate regimen schedule.
Additionally, participants in sports, athletics, and recreational activities often desire to measure their progress relative to their earlier performance or to a performance benchmark such as a famous athlete. Coaches and trainers may desire to monitor the performance of a player or a team as a whole. Further, medical patients who have suffered an injury that restricts movement of a limb or joint may desire to track their improvement during rehabilitation, and an attending health care provider may desire an object measurement of the improvement.
Sensors can be attached to portions of the body to measure body movements. Data from the sensors can be analyzed to determine characteristics of the body movement (e.g., a range of motion). Today's sensors frequently store data only locally in the device. The data can be displayed on a local readout device that is part of the sensor. Most training environments require the trainee to “dump” readings from the device to a PC or other computing device to store a composite record of many training sessions and view trend data. Such an embodiment is illustrated in FIG. 1. The present novel instantiation provides a wirelessly-networked, cloud-based system for continuously aggregating, analyzing, and displaying and notifying a trainee of the historical and real-time measurement data, as well as providing feedback on progress, training improvement suggestions, and honing sports performance. In this case, “wirelessly-networked” means a combination of wireless networks including a Personal Area Network (e.g. 802.15.4/ZigBee), a Local Area Network (e.g. 802.11/Wi-Fi), a Wide-Area network (e.g. 3G/4G Cellular), and possibly a Body Area Network (e.g. ANT). By “combination” we mean that the networks may be joined together to provide a composite network, for example BAN-to-PAN-to-WAN, or BAN-to-PAN-to-LAN. The BAN or PAN, for example, may link and multiplex data from a group of sensors, each of which is located at a different location on the body.
In some cases, the player or the patient is at one location where he or she performs movements measured by the sensors, while the coach or health care provider is at another location distant from the player or patient. In such cases, it may be inconvenient or difficult to communicate sensor measurements to the coach or healthcare provider resulting in delays in coaching instruction or diagnosis. The present disclosure addresses this and other problems.
Additionally, the use of wireless communication devices have become so prevalent in today's society that almost everyone uses a cell phone or other wireless communication device for communication with one another. As people become more confident with the use of these wireless communication devices and the services they provide, the use of wired devices, such as a wired telephone at home, have become less important in day-to-day life. The result of this change in behavior has led many people to discontinue their wired communication service and rely entirely on their wireless communication device. In some circumstances, such as those living on the fringe of service or living in large multi-unit complexes, the marginal signal strength in these locations makes relying entirely on a wireless service a somewhat risky proposition.
The above-described deficiencies of today's training regimens wireless communications systems are merely intended to provide an overview of some of the problems of conventional systems, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with the state of the art and corresponding benefits of one or more of the various non-limiting embodiments may become further apparent upon review of the following detailed description.